It unfolded that summer like a Shakespearean tragedy, if Shakespeare had been Canadian and fond of hiring actors with hockey hair. So much has already been told — and re-told — of the trade, it is worth taking a look specifically at the main players in the deal. Here, National Post sports reporter Sean Fitz-Gerald examines the six principals, their context, and how they view that Aug. 9, 1988, deal in retrospect:

Bruce McNall, owner, Los Angeles KingsA native Californian who made his name dealing in ancient coins, McNall spent US$20-million to assume full control of the Kings in the spring of 1988, and was eager to make waves. His predecessor, Jerry Buss, had raised the possibility of prying Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers, and McNall was intent on following up.

He has said he mentioned a trade whenever he saw Oilers owner Peter Pocklington, and the Oilers owner surprised him when he finally asked for terms. In addition to a handful of players added to make it look like a trade — rather than the sale that it was — McNall agreed to pay Pocklington US$15-million. (With the exchange rate at the time, that was worth about $18-million.)

McNall, speaking to the National Post in 2003, after serving four years in a U.S. prison for bank fraud, suggested Canadian fans grudgingly understood the trade: “They always realized that their national treasure was better protected in L.A., in some ways, than it was in Edmonton.”

Peter Pocklington, owner, Edmonton OilersHis team had just won its fourth Stanley Cup title in five years, with a roster positioned to stay in contention for years to come. But the biggest star on Pocklington’s roster was near the end of his contract, and Gretzky was poised to become an unrestricted free agent — a scenario that could have meant the (increasingly) small-market Oilers would lose him for nothing in return.

That is the rationale Pocklington has provided for a quarter-century, against questions of why the US$15-million payout was required. (In 2010, years after the trade, a California court sentenced him to six months’ house arrest for perjury during a bankruptcy case. He was also placed on probation.)

“I did not trade Wayne Gretzky so I could generate cash to ‘prop up’ my other businesses,” Pocklington wrote in a guest column for the National Post last year. “At the time, most of my other businesses were quite profitable, and it was the security they provided that allowed me to prop up the Oilers.”

Wayne Gretzky, centre, Edmonton OilersNear the end of Peter Berg’s 2009 documentary for ESPN, Kings Ransom, Gretzky is asked about his motivation for permitting the transaction: “I was mad they were trying to trade me … so I left.”

Speculation about a possible move reached Gretzky shortly after the Oilers romped past the Boston Bruins in the 1988 Stanley Cup final: “I think my dad and some people in the hockey world knew there was a possibility of me being traded before I did,” Gretzky told The Hockey News earlier this year.

His contract was waning, and a free market was waiting. As he told his documentarian, he did not want to leave Edmonton, but he also wanted to be paid what he was worth.

Glen Sather, general manager, Edmonton OilersAs the man in charge of the product on the ice, Sather was understandably — and very strongly — opposed to any notion of trading Gretzky, under any circumstances. “When Glen and I talked about the trade, um, he was quite pissed off,” Pocklington says in the ESPN documentary. “I’d say I was more than pissed off,” Sather says in response. “I don’t really get that emotional over a lot of things, and I was pretty upset at this.”

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Sather also said he offered to resign, to stop the momentum as the group headed into a news conference to announce the trade, if Gretzky decided he wanted to stay. He did not have to resign that day.

Janet Jones, actor, married to GretzkyThey had met years earlier, when Gretzky was a celebrity judge on the television show Dance Fever, but the timing of their nuptials raised eyebrows. Janet Jones, then a 27-year-old actor — Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach was released earlier that year — married Gretzky a month before the trade. Conspiracy theories mounted; it was alleged her career ambitions had broken up a dynasty.

“She wasn’t the influence the Canadian press made her out to be, but she was there and she really wanted it to happen,” McNall told The Hockey News earlier this year.

“Of course it fit the whole scenario of ‘me wanting to be an actress,’” she said during the ESPN documentary. “But it’s kind of funny if you look back now; I was barefoot and pregnant for the next eight years. There was no time for acting.”

Jimmy Carson, forward, Los Angeles KingsHis owner told him to buy a house, so he bought a house. Jimmy Carson, then a 20-year-old forward, scored 92 goals in his first two seasons with the Kings. McNall told him he was going to be a part of the future, that he would be a fixture. And then, he was not.

Carson bought that house. And then: “You outfitted it and, oh, by the way, you were just involved in the biggest trade in the history of sports. Now what?” he asked TSN recently.

Carson was the biggest name sent back to Edmonton in the deal. (At least, he was at first, with Martin Gélinas, another player involved, at the start of a long, productive career.)